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Playstation 4 Graphics Engine

Crytek Already Preparing for PlayStation 4's Launch

If you know anything about PC gaming, you've probably heard of Crytek, the envelope pushing company that busted out a game so graphically intense in Crysis that most computers spontaneously combusted upon trying to run it. The intense hardware requirements of the game resulted in underwhelming sales upon its initial release, though the game has sold over 1.5 million copies to date now, 18 months after its release, as more and more PC gamers finally acquire the capability to simply run it.

Crytek is at it again, building on the framework of Crysis' Cry Engine 2, with the forthcoming Cry Engine 3, which they say will be perfect for the upcoming PlayStation 4, despite their limited knowledge on the system. The Cry Engine 3 is the first rendering engine being built for the next generation consoles, and was recently shown off at the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco.

One of the key features touted by the Cry Engine 3 is its scalability, which will make it perfectly suitable for the varying capabilities of the 3 next generation consoles, as well as PC game development. Whereas many engines have difficulty achieving full compatibility with specific hardware, such as the Unreal Engine, or are simply too weak or too powerful for the hardware, the Cry Engine 3 will attempt to make all of these problems a thing of the past.

The scalability will play a huge role in games developed for multiple formats, allowing easy and flawless portability between different hardware systems. This should make the engine ideal for PlayStation 4 gamers, as they should see the full benefit of the PlayStation 4's power, whereas PS3 and Xbox360 cross platform games have been very similar, with developers unable to fully maximize the PS3's power with their game engines. In fact the scalability makes the engine perfect for even current generation systems, so we're likely to see PS3 games using the Cry Engine 3 before the PS4 even launches.

Some of the features that will be present in the Cry Engine 3 include:

These are just some of the advanced features that are coming with the Cry Engine 3. Screenshots and demos from the show were running on current generation hardware, so naturally they don't show off what the engine will look like running on a PlayStation 4, but it's an impressive looking engine nonetheless.

An Epic(Games) Battle, No Cry(tek)ing Allowed

Not to be outdone, Epic Games is also working on an upgrade to their popular Unreal Engine, now in its third iteration. The Unreal Engine 4 is planned for the PlayStation 4 and other next generation consoles, though the engine was given an incredibly wide window of possible release, anywhere between 2012 (the PlayStation 4's probable release date) and 2018. We have to believe the engine is coming much sooner than 2018 (which would actually set it more in line with the PlayStation 5's probable release), as gamers and developers alike have expressed concerns over the Unreal Engine 3, over both its texture pop-in, and its over-saturation in the marketplace.

One technology which may or may not make into the PS4 is ray tracing. Ray tracing is a stunning rendering technology that creates near photo-realistic images (and yeah, we've heard the term photo-realistic graphics in gaming for a long time, but this technology really does push that line, at least in still images, as we've yet to see it in a game, though several demos have been released showcasing the technology in action), naturally at a massive computational cost, making it unusable by present gaming systems, including computers. Whether or not PS4 hardware will be powerful enough to allow for ray tracing is an unknown at this time.

What we know is that these are just the first of many future rendering engines and technologies which will be used for the PlayStation 4, and that many more will surface once the system's specs are detailed. Get ready to wipe plenty of drool from your chin once the first screens of the PlayStation 4 start gloriously bombarding us in the near future.

Comments

No wonder games take so much money, and so many people to develop now, these graphics engines and all of their effects are just insane. It's not surprising that Japanese companies are more in love with the handhelds right now than the consoles. So much simpler to develop for, and with larger install bases to boot. There's just so much financial risk developing a major console game nowadays, especially in this economy.

i love my ps3 to hear sony is coming out with a 4th. 1 i was exited to hear it. Exited untill i read the price. are you guys realy serious? 1000 why not make 1500 or 2000. that is just unreasonable with the current economical status. yes you might sell quite a few but not as many as u could a a reasonable price. if the price of gaming becomes too outrageous i might just quit

It's just a poll to see how much people would be willing to pay for the PS4, it in no way represents the actual price the system will likely sell for at launch (unless you're stuck buying it on Ebay, at which point $1,000 might look like a steal).

i say it will cost bitween 599-899$ maybe im not sure......many new things will be soo diffrent on PS4 new Proccessors new graphics no RRD ofcource LOL! and i heard they will use somthing called holograph and on top of that we must buy new TV's wich has other than HDMI function like now adays and that means....... MY POCKET WILL SCREAM HEEELPP $$$$!!!!! lol...sorry anyways i thing everything will be fine in future dont be soo paniced everyone...more and PSP 2 is coming too that maybe will be control able on PS4.....
i wish to see those games are back with its new HD graphics because iv played them sins PS1,2,3/
-DOT.HACK//
-ONIMOSHA
-ROLLCAGE STAGE II
-ACE COMBAT
-SYPHON FILTER
-DYNO CRYSIS
many on my mind but anyways that was great subject about PS4 and we need more in future thanx......

Are you frickin kidding me? $1000 for a PS4 are the rumors. If it truly is that much, then you would have to be insane to buy one. Why not just buy a damn computer and play the games. It's pretty much the same thing at that point. I would never pay 1000 for a gaming system, and wouldn't even matter if I had the most money in the world, i still wouldn't buy one, so if I were the one to decide the price, at least make it affordable.

Atari isn't a console. Atari was a console company. The console you're referring to is the Atari 2600. Also, that wasn't even the first console. The first was the Magnavox Odyssey. Unless you count Pong.

I would pay a thousand dollars, if the PS4 comes with Ray Tracing support. If the Graphics are Cinema quality for an in-game experience, I'm sold. Take the photo real videos on youtube about crysis. The photo real 4 mod (I think it's called).
Graphics are the number one thing for me.
I am sure the other techs like physics upgrades will be a norm. Why do I have Terraria's music playing in my head? well I guess it's because i am at work now. Lol. That catchy music. Gotta go now. Peace

I highly doubt that, graphics cards are updated every 6 months to a year. Buy the time the console is launched, the graphic card will be at least 6 - 18 months old.
Also a PC isn't just for gaming. People spend about $800 for a new computer and then $500 or so for a new console. Either way you are are going to buy a new computer whether you play games on it or not. You mine as well buy a gaming PC and save some money rather than buying a PC & gaming device (console) separately... unless a console has some series that the PC doesn't have.

4gb unified ram ? I thought that it was 2gb DDR5 for sure and maybe 4gb DDR5.
The Gpu was supposed to be between 7850 and 7870 in terms of power.
The Cpu might eventually include another Gpu.
Those specs are rumors. The Price is bs you invented, nobody said 499.

I think the only things people should take from this post is that AMD will play a part in the PS4's hardware parts.
The majority of rumours about the PS4's processor is that it'll likely be a SOC.
Other rumours also put the PS4 as having an APU and external GPU, which will mean it won't be having a unified memory architecture, instead it'd have memory in the APU and ram in the form of GDDR5 in the external GPU, so a split pool.
Some rumours state the SOC will have maybe 100 megabytes of ram (think eDram) actually built in, which is a lot.
It's also possible that full system memory (as in gigabytes of ram) could be built into a SOC, making for radically fast data transfer speeds.
The quad core part is quite a common thing being mentioned, but since AMD's new APUs share pretty much the same CPU element as Sony's 2010 patented 4 core, 16 SPE cell this will be a similar technology to PS3's CPU only a more advanced development of that.
Price isn't known, but apparently Sony's new cell design is relatively cheap to manufacture and won't have to be shipped all over the place to put the new
console together, which could mean an inexpensive, but powerful (given the tech in use) design.
The GPU in cell has been rumoured to be a number of different models, which have included the whole APU being the A8-3850 (though this was apparently an older dev kit, from way back in the earlier dev cycle of PS4's specs), more recently a hd 6850 has been mentioned to fit into the APU.
External GPU isn't known for sure, but it's been rumoured that it'll likely be in the 79** series.
PS3 slims can read 4k blurays, so a 4 layer Bluray player is likely and since 12 times models are actually quite cheap now fast reading drives are likely.
Large HDDs are also likely if Sony wants to make PS4 more of a media hub, even terabyte drives are cheap now.
The flash memory is likely for OS, Updates, Saves etc, but a size isn't known, likely whatever is reasonable for all of those functions and stays within a reasonable dev budget.

Back when PS3 was released bluray was expensive, it's not now.
Sony or any of the other manufacturers could do deals with AMD, AMD doesn't have to charge full price for parts to bring a massively powerful new gen of consoles out.
I think Nvidia rinsed Sony on the price of the RSX too, Sony could get something cheaper, but still many times more powerful than the RSX quite easily, even a HD 6870 is cheaper than the RSX was for Sony and Sony could buy that for a fraction of what consumers will pay for a PC build, but still have a card 10 times more powerful than the whole PS3 console.
Even making say a profit of 100 dollars per console if Sony sells 10 million units then AMD makes a billion dollars, that's a massive profit and Sony could easily sell that many units in a year.
As long as AMD gets a little profit per machine Sony makes it's all good for AMD.
Sony probably won't care about making a profit on the console, coz they make it on the games.
AMD probably makes masses of money when selling each GPU, especially the high end stuff to each customer, so if they churn them out for like 10% of what they charge it doesn't matter if they make a small profit per unit supplying console manufacturers.
If Sony does this we all get to buy a beast of a machine for r fraction of what it would cost to build a PC with that tech and everyone wins.

I still don't see why ps4 games are so high. PC games still have better graphics. But it would look cool playing games with this much graphic on console. I think they should lower the 100 price for video games to 80 or keep it at 60.

Sony's new ps4 will be a scam. You idiots don't realize these "new" games will still be 1080p. How is this an upgrade from current generation? It will come with blue ray, it already has blu ray! The same games will come out for the ps3 for years to come just like the ps2. The controller looks identical the ps3 and the new console will be overpriced as usual. Stick to your ps3 or fall victim to Sony's robbery of their own consumers.

The "upgrades" coming are the physical capabilities - lighting engines, 3-D texturing, face modeling, soft-body engines, more particle rendering, higher polygon count, the list goes on. And as for the controller, this is the most different looking controller Sony has made since the original Playstation. As for Blue-Ray, what was your idea? Downloads? What if you don't have an internet connection? The blue ray drive is supposed to be 6 times faster at reading data. It isn't display size (1080p) that's important anymore. We can now get into serious realism. Did you not see the demos of the face modeling? The textures being used in drive club? the real-time 1,000,000 particle simulation? The lighting in the Battlefield 4 gameplay? This is what's possible on the next generation. You can't get realistic expressions to that level on PS3 without crashing, nor polygon count. GT5 pushes the PS3 to it's limits when running with full weather, premium cars, and time changing. And it has major lighting issues STILL, since the PS3's hardware is so limited.
AND, the PS4 is supposed to be $400-550 at launch, as compared to the $600-700 PS3 at launch - a bargain, if the PSN services are still free.